Last weekend was the second and last of the two-weekend shoot for my short film, Walking Wounded, and I’m still recovering. It’s a 16-page script, which means we averaged four pages per day. That’s like shooting a 110-page feature in about 27 days, which is pretty respectable.

The Panasonic HVX200 treated us pretty well. It’s got its limitations — gainy blacks, for instance — but overall I’m very satisfied. It functioned flawlessly and we’ve got some great images. However, I don’t know how anyone could work with the 4 or 8GB P2 cards. The 16GB cards were released right before this shoot, and we got to use two of them, for a total of 32GB of in-camera storage. That allowed us to shoot an entire day before off-loading, a process that took around half an hour or more. If we had to swap out 4GB cards so we could off-load and keep shooting, I think I would’ve jumped in front of a bus.

Among the random things I learned on this shoot…

- August in the San Fernando Valley is mighty hot, and white people who spend all day on the roof will get sunburned.
- Assistant directors and script supervisors are essential for any production that aims to be even a hair above amateur; I know because we didn’t have one and we suffered for it.
- People who will work on your short for free because they like you — or, even better, they like the project — are priceless.